1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a document management system, an information processing apparatus, a document management method, and a computer-readable recording medium, and, in particular, to a document management system and an information processing apparatus which integrally manage a plurality of document management databases which belong to a plurality of computers, respectively, connected by a network such as a LAN (Local Area Network), and a computer-readable recording medium in which programs for achieving such functions are record.
The present invention further relates to a document management system, a documents management method and a computer-readable recording medium, in particular, to a document management system by which operations of decomposing a document consisting of a plurality of sections into the respective sections, which is treated as individual documents, and, then, coupling the thus-produced plurality of documents together into the original document can be performed.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, document data stored in a document management database is managed and manipulated as a result of the document management database belonging to a server computer connected to a network such as a LAN is accessed through a client computer also connected to the network.
FIG. 1 shows contents of display on a display monitor (CRT or the like) obtained as a result of an access being made to a document management database belonging to a server computer connected to a network from a client computer also connected to the network.
This page shown in FIG. 1 includes three regions (M1, V1 and V2), the region M1 displays a menu through which a user inputs instructions to the computer, the region V1 displays a data management tree (a tree-like structure of cabinets/folders) of the accessed document management database (document management 1), the region V2 displays documents (document 1 through document 8) stored in the cabinet or folder F1 selected from the region V1 by the user. The user uses a mouse or the like against the page to select a document/folder, perform dragging and dropping, and input instructions for various operations to the document management database by selecting (through a mouse click) menu buttons of the menu.
Specifically, as a result of a document manipulating client software installed in the client computer is started up, instructions are sent to a server software existing in the server computer from the client software in accordance with instructions by the user, and, accordingly, the server software processes data of the document management database.
However, in the above-described system, when a user accesses a plurality of different document management databases existing in a plurality of server computers, respectively, it is necessary to start up a plurality of document manipulating client software corresponding to the respective ones of the plurality of different document management databases. That is, a corresponding document manipulating client software 1 should be started up in order to access a document management database 1 existing in a server computer 1, and a corresponding document manipulating client software 2 should be started up in order to access a document management database 2 existing in a server computer 2.
Because respective document management databases are different in style of data storage (a tree-like storage style, a time-series storage style, and so forth), in interface (system/measure through which information is sent between the document manipulating client software and server software), in type of data handled (image data, numerical data, and so forth), it is not possible to access a document management database unless a document manipulating client software specifically designed for the document management database is used.
Such a phenomenon is the same as a phenomenon that, for example, where there are a database produced using the database software Access™ of Microsoft and a database produced using the database software Approach™ of Lotus, the Access cannot be used for accessing the database produced using the Approach, and, similarly, the Approach cannot be used for accessing the database produced using the Access.
Further, transferring data between different document management databases may not be achieved due to difference in software specifications.
FIG. 2 shows a state in which documents are managed by one example of document management software in the related art.
This document management software manages the documents by a tree hierarchical structure as shown in the figure. Information regarding the structure shown in the figure is stored in a predetermined recording medium orderly.
In this structure, first, roots for document management are provided, are branched into folders, subfolders, and, documents exists in each subfolder. One document consists of minimum units for document management, called sections, coupled to each other. Each section is a draft produced using a word processor, an image input using a scanner, and, thus, ones having different forms are allowed. These sections have the attribute of order or sequence in each document.
In general cases, each section comprises a unit of file (for example, a WORD™ (Microsoft) file, an EXCEL™ (Microsoft) file, or the like), and, is a minimum unit on an OS (operating system), and exists individually on the OS. These files cannot be coupled to each other so as to have a relationship therebetween on the OS unless they are collected in a unit of folder, or the like. However, there are cases where these are needed to be related to each other so as to be gathered, in view points of actual working by an operator and/or performing file management. For this purpose, a document management software is used for coupling a plurality of sections (files) into a form of ‘document’.
Here, it is possible to name the above-mentioned folders, subfolders, documents and sections with names desired by an operator. However, it is standard that, in order to reduce a load borne by an operator, when sections are registered as a document, the name of each section is produced from the original file name of the section, and, a name of the document is produced from the name of the first section of the sections constituting the document.
One example of such document management software is ‘Ridoc Desk Ver. 2.0’, a product of the applicant.
However, in accordance with such a standard management system, a section name is produced from an original file name, and will not be changed. Thereby, when performing document coupling (gathering sections) and document decomposition (separation into particular sections), an operator has difficulty in recognizing which sections (documents) were coupled as the same document, and, thus, have a relationship previously.
In order to relating sections together, it can be considered to newly produce some section attribute so as to solve this problem. However, this method is not easy for an operator to recognize the relation, and, also, produces troublesome in management.